MOCAŠ
MB Enthusiast
A friend of mine, a motoring journalist, wastes no opportunity to point out how Germanic in tone (if not accent) he finds the voice of the (NTG1) sat nav lady whenever he travels in my SLK. This has tended to bemuse me somewhat, as I've always found "her" voice to be quite amenable. And yet, he will invariably be reduced to intoning "you vill obey" in response to hearing her, within an inkling of our beginning any journey during which I happen to call on her services.
Well, this week my faith in her gentle tones has been reinforced, having had the use of a current-model Range Rover Vogue for a couple of days. For some reason, Land Rover have seen fit to furnish it with a female American voice. If you're conjuring thoughts of a velvety Jessica Rabbit, though, forget it: imagine instead some grating, screeching harridan seemingly caught at her time of the month. The first time I used it, I fair near jumped out of my (very comfortable) driver's seat due to the volume difference between her voice and that of the dulcet James Naughtie on the Today programme, across whom she barked her orders.
Not being able to work out how to reduce her volume without having to stop and resort to the user manual, I decided to live with it. However, her manner never mellowed. Every instruction was delivered with an impatient, "just do it" overtone, as though she was at the end of her tether because I'd disobeyed everything she'd said heretofore (I hadn't; I daren't!). It wasn't just her accent and tone, either; her vocabulary was also distinctly American. Most annoying was her insistence on calling roundabouts "traffic circles" - with a drawl, no less - but another irritating trait was her kurt, impatient "TAKE THE EXIT" order, almost dalek-like in the charmlessness of its delivery.
And then there was the sing-song nature of her attempt at stringing together any set of instructions telling me to make a manoeuvre that involved negotiating a junction to join a named A road. If she really had sung her instructions, I have no doubt she'd have done so with the melisma and vibrato turned up to 11...
Needless to say I came away with a renewed appreciation for the rather lovely lady that tells me where to go when I'm in my SLK. I don't know who she is, but far from finding her authoritarian (as my friend does), I find her gently reassuring and forgiving; even when I obdurately think I know better and fail to do her bidding (which can be with alarming frequency) she faultlessly maintains her sang froid.
Land Rover could learn a thing or two from this.
Well, this week my faith in her gentle tones has been reinforced, having had the use of a current-model Range Rover Vogue for a couple of days. For some reason, Land Rover have seen fit to furnish it with a female American voice. If you're conjuring thoughts of a velvety Jessica Rabbit, though, forget it: imagine instead some grating, screeching harridan seemingly caught at her time of the month. The first time I used it, I fair near jumped out of my (very comfortable) driver's seat due to the volume difference between her voice and that of the dulcet James Naughtie on the Today programme, across whom she barked her orders.
Not being able to work out how to reduce her volume without having to stop and resort to the user manual, I decided to live with it. However, her manner never mellowed. Every instruction was delivered with an impatient, "just do it" overtone, as though she was at the end of her tether because I'd disobeyed everything she'd said heretofore (I hadn't; I daren't!). It wasn't just her accent and tone, either; her vocabulary was also distinctly American. Most annoying was her insistence on calling roundabouts "traffic circles" - with a drawl, no less - but another irritating trait was her kurt, impatient "TAKE THE EXIT" order, almost dalek-like in the charmlessness of its delivery.
And then there was the sing-song nature of her attempt at stringing together any set of instructions telling me to make a manoeuvre that involved negotiating a junction to join a named A road. If she really had sung her instructions, I have no doubt she'd have done so with the melisma and vibrato turned up to 11...
Needless to say I came away with a renewed appreciation for the rather lovely lady that tells me where to go when I'm in my SLK. I don't know who she is, but far from finding her authoritarian (as my friend does), I find her gently reassuring and forgiving; even when I obdurately think I know better and fail to do her bidding (which can be with alarming frequency) she faultlessly maintains her sang froid.
Land Rover could learn a thing or two from this.